


Empty Spaces Between

by Influxus



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Dubious Consent, M/M, Spoilers for Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:25:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Influxus/pseuds/Influxus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q meets Silva when he's fifteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Spaces Between

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for Skyfall.

Q meets Silva when he's fifteen. 

Silva simply walks up to him one day on his way home from school and introduces himself. It turns out he’s the person Q's been chatting to online about securities and circumvention. He offers him a job, with just enough flattery to appeal to the pride of a fifteen year old boy and enough challenge to make him curious. The money he offers isn’t bad either. 

From then on Silva pops up occasionally, offering him small but interesting jobs. In between Silva's assignments and chatting frequently online, on the rare occasion Q meets up with him in person, Silva always teaches him something. A new way to hack into this or how he had designed a new program to do that. Q likes to think that Silva learns some things from him as well, during their meetings. Q always knew he was a bright mind; Silva knows that too and doesn’t try to patronize him, something Q loathes. 

Gradually, their in-person meetings become more frequent. Q’s parents are busy people and note that he has a new friend, although they don’t know who. Teenagers are naturally secretive; they assume it is a girlfriend.

**

Surprisingly, they don’t have sex until Q is seventeen. Q was still a virgin at the time, sexually frustrated and frustrated by his sexual frustration. Silva had noticed, as he always did, and offered. Q had no particular preferences towards men or women and, weighing his options, accepted. After that first time, they begin to have sex semi-regularly. It’s stress relieving for both of them and Silva is once again extremely knowledgeable in this area. It isn’t love, it’s barely even affection. It is a convenience, a mutual favor between friends. 

One day Silva proposes a game. A test of endurance, to see how long Q can hold out. Q does an admirable job for seventeen and Silva proposes another game. The games continue, just another of the many things that Silva can teach him; try not to come until I say so, try holding still while I do this, try holding your breath this long, see how long you can hold out when I do this, and so on. The games continue to escalate and Q begins to become slightly frightened. Despite that, he can’t bring himself to stop. He likes it, or at least his body does, and though his rational mind tells him to stop, screams at the degradation, the _conditioning_ Silva is doing, his body does as it likes. Eventually, his mind and body come to an accord.

**

At eighteen, he is recruited by MI6. Silva had called it 'a great opportunity' when they'd made sure that Q would pop up on MI6's radar. Q was simply curious. Curious about MI6, curious about working within the government and curious what it would be like out from under Silva's thumb. Q is not a naturally submissive individual and occasionally, being subordinate to Silva grates on him. Silva knows, Silva always somehow knows, and waves him off. 

"Another learning opportunity," he says. "And I know how much you love learning."

"Not as much as I love being right," Q says tartly, and Silva smiles against the base of his neck and replies, "You are right to take the job."

"I know," Q says and lets Silva roll him over to be fucked breathless. 

Q takes the job and it is in turn as interesting as he'd hoped and as boring as he dreaded. Bureaucracy seeps into everything and forces him to crawl when he would rather run. This lessens somewhat when he’s transferred to R&D. The Quartermaster is a fascinating man and Q enjoys working with him. They are grooming Q to become the next Quartermaster, and both he and the current Quartermaster know it. 

"You'll have to begin working with the 00's soon," he says in a way that sounds like a warning but is filled with affection. Q begins to study the 00s, and M.

**

The next time they meet, in a lovely hotel in France, Q shows Silva all the files MI6 has on him. 

"Ah, memories," Silva says, absently tapping his jaw. "How is dear old Mummy nowadays?"

Q shrugs and pushes some of the files off the bed to sit down. "I don't know, I've only ever spoken to her once. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because, you'd find out on your own. Don't you find knowledge gained is better than knowledge given?"

"So am I part of your revenge scheme?" Q asks, stroking the line of Silva's jaw where the implant sits. Silva had shown it to him once, explained that it was the result of abandonment.

"Yes," Silva says. "You are. Does that bother you?"

Q thinks for a moment. He _does_ have friends at MI6, and he is genuinely fond of the aging Quartermaster. But still, none of them are Silva.

"Shall I call you Tiago now?" Q asks, unbuttoning Silva's shirt, an answer within a non-answer. 

"No," Silva says. "Tiago is dead," and pushes him down onto the bed where they fuck on top of the copied files Q had stolen.

**

They begin to see each other less and less, although they still remain in contact. Q's sex life reaches an all time low, which makes him snappish when it’s been too long and ravenous when he does see Silva. He has undone as much of Silva’s conditioning as he cares to, but the best orgasms are still the ones Silva gives him. They leave masses of bruises, bite marks, long scratches and sometimes rope burns and shallow knife cuts all over each other’s bodies after too long apart, though it sates them for a time. Q’s colleagues are naturally curious people, but clothes cover everything and Q is careful. No one notices.

**

Q becomes the new Quartermaster. He makes sure to be out of the building the day Silva blows up MI6's headquarters, and the subsequent relocation is done just in time for Agent 007 to come back to life. The day after Q meets Bond for the first time, he lies content and sated in a small safe house in Ireland. He has a long scratch down his left side and bite marks on his inner thighs that travel all the way back to his ass. 

"What was he like?" Silva asks, pressing his fingers into one of the bite marks.

Q thinks for a moment. "Arrogant. Tired. Troublesome."

"Are you worried about me?" Silva asks. "Now I can't _wait_ to meet him. Mummy's new pet."

"He’s more trouble than he's worth."

"Then I have received your warning and I will think about it."

"No you won't," Q says peevishly. "You'll ignore it and do as you always do. But I've given you your warning, so no one can say otherwise now."

"Who would say such a thing?" Silva teases. "Come, onto my lap, I want you again."

Q crawls onto his lap and leans in for a sharp, biting kiss that turns into a low moan as Silva thrusts into him. Silva makes him ride his cock until Q screams, and finally lets him have one of those shattering orgasms he can only ever manage with Silva.

**

The last time Q sees Silva is when he is brought in by Bond. Q stares, because it is expected of him, and Silva looks at nothing and everything. Q begins to think on the briefcase. Hours later Silva is in their system, a mistake anyone could have made, though Q is hardly just anyone. Bond catches something rather quicker than Q had hoped, and then he’s guiding Bond through the tunnels. It is quite fun, although he tries not to let it show.

Later, after the failed attempt on M, Silva calls Q from somewhere in Leeds. Q refrains from stating the obvious and Silva, through his anger and irritation, sounds almost grateful.

"They are somewhere, gone to ground like frightened rabbits. A rabbit and a rat. But the bunny is a clever one. And the rat is just like me. Hard to kill. I need a bigger team."

"So get them. You know where they're going as much as I do."

"Yes." Silva pauses for a long moment. "When they are dead, what shall we do, you and I?"

Q snorts. "What a question. I will continue on at MI6. And you will do what you always do. Which is live, in case you’ve forgotten."

"Yes," Silva chuckles. "Your concern is… touching. Another reason why you are always my favorite."

"Am I?" Q asks, a bit surprised, and not at all.

"Yes," Silva says. "Until next time."

There is no next time.

**

MI6 goes on, mostly as it always has, the new M a straightforward and practical man, and Q likes him as well as he liked the previous M. Bond is back on active duty and, after his initial anger, Q finds himself somewhat grudgingly admiring the man. He did, after all, kill Silva, which couldn't have been easy.

Q misses Silva, even cries a bit when he hears the news. Though it was never love between them, barely even friendship at times, there was devotion, and loyalty. He supposes now he should get rid of the little of Silva's conditioning that remains; without Silva, it's pointless. He'll miss the sex almost as much as he'll miss the man. No one will ever be the same, so he'll try something else entirely. Perhaps girls. Perhaps even dating. That would be new.

Q finds he is now the head of Silva's empire. It was either that, or let it fall to ruin, as there is really no one else suitable for the job. And as sentimental as Q is _not_ , letting the empire Silva built out of the ashes of his love for his dear, departed M fall to pieces seems an awful waste. Besides, he did always enjoy working certain parts of it with Silva and truthfully, confining himself to the parameters of MI6 sounds dreadfully dull. Now, between MI6 and his freshly acquired criminal enterprise, he has more than enough to keep things interesting. Q looks forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Because Skyfall doesn’t give anyone’s age, I have decided that Silva is 45 (only a bit older than Javier Bardem) and the handover that M refers to is the one in 1997, which would have made Silva roughly 30 years old at the time of his imprisonment. Ben Whishaw is deceptively young looking, so instead of making Q closer to Whishaw’s age, I decided on 25. That would make the year Q meets Silva 2002, when Q is 15 and Silva is 35.


End file.
